Challenges of quality control for file-based video workflow
19 June 2009
“While service differentiation is becoming more transparent, the watch words are “Content is King”. Factors that could help differentiate one provider and broadcaster from another will likely include the perception of the quality of what the consumer sees and hears,” said Simon Begent, marketing and operations manager, Tektronix UK Ltd, UK in a presentation entitled ‘Challenges of quality control for file-based video workflow’.
“Ensuring and optimizing filebased content quality means evaluating and reacting to media quality inside the network and understanding the impact the content can have on other elements in the ecosystem as well. It is not just the audio, video and metadata that matter now, format and syntax are critical,” Begent added.
Traditionally, this has been done by QC teams who have to look and listen to verify the content, but this is a subjective, time-consuming and costly process, he explained. In addition file-based digital media presents particular challenges in that the correctness of the encoding, file structure, metadata, video and audio bitrates, and other parameters necessary to ensure correct broadcast and customer reception, cannot be checked by human eyes and ears.
Video broadcasting is going file-based, and the number of different file video and audio formats is growing. Content providers, content aggregators and broadcasters have access today to more file-based digital content than ever before. Compared to just a few years ago there are many new sources of broadcast quality video and audio content. Archives are growing every day and the variety of standards and formats that need supporting is evolving rapidly.
The entire broadcast landscape has become more complex with new channels, new services and an explosion of content and formats for distribution via terrestrial, satellite, cable, internet and mobile streaming and download; not just SD but also HD and many other formats to suit the new distribution media.
Content is being re-purposed at different formats and bitrates, using new compression standards (not only MPEG-2 but MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, VC-1 etc.) with different wrappers (MPEG, MXF, GXF, ASF etc.) and requirements for each.
Content suppliers are producing, and broadcasters are ingesting, large volumes of file-based media that typically can be tens or hundreds of new files every day.
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